Purple To Dust

Nothing this woman does surprises me. The tip of my tongue still alive with her taste; with salt from the reservoir gathered in passion and pondered by three sheepish freckles left blushing near the small of her back. My wife is cooking breakfast for dinner this evening: The quick crack of shell meeting skillet. The slow after-sizzle of raw egg having slimed down the ladder through smoky air to bubbly bacon grease waiting below. The smell of it all. Coffee begins to drip. Soon one fried egg. Two strips of bacon. Toasted wheat bread with slightly melted butter and always sticky strawberry jam cut corner to corner - two perfectly compatible right-triangles in a blonde smattering of crumbs on the plain white circle before me. There is a tall glass of orange juice to the right of my plate. My wife is the coffee-drinker in our house. Our five-year old daughter is off in another room playing house with stuffed iguanas and a sticker book. Outside on the garden a hushed evening rain. Purple petunias long past their fade. Purple to dust. Her daughter’s red tricycle rusts. Reading the Sunday funnies, my wife silently sips her coffee. The house has long been silent where ghosts rinse their wares.